


Amber

by alitbitmoody



Series: Stoplight (Prompts) [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Canon LGBTQ Character, Cohabitation, Discussion of trauma recovery, Established Relationship, Frottage, M/M, Mentions of corsetry and unmentionables, Newt is a fan of AO3, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-17 17:19:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16100234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitbitmoody/pseuds/alitbitmoody
Summary: Six weeks after being rescued, Newton needed new clothes.





	Amber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Basilintime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basilintime/gifts).



> From the [Drabble Challenge](https://prompt-bank.tumblr.com/post/152084082678/drabble-challenge): **Prompt 65. “I don’t want you to stop.”**

Hermann was the first to spot three large boxes stacked against the door when they turned the corner toward their quarters. Even without the neural link, he could feel the excitement coming off of the man next to him in waves.

“It appears your new wardrobe has arrived,” he said.

Newton had already dropped his hand -- and his messenger bag, _and_ the smaller parcel he had been carrying. They had diverted to the mess hall after Newton’s appointment and the end of Hermann’s shift in the lab — so his partner could slap together what Hermann privately thought of as a “garbage sandwich” (rye bun, cold potatoes, cheese crisps and, of all things, plum jam). Only the sandwich remained as Newton jetted forward.

“Yessss! _Hemden und Hosen mir das gefitten!_ ” he said, picking up the first box to examine the address label. Hermann smiled as he fished for his key ring. “This is the greatest day ever. Well, this is the greatest day this month anyway, this week… this Tuesday?”

“Just get your boxes inside, Newton. And everything else that you dropped.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it,” he said, shoving the last bite of the sandwich into his mouth.

It had not started out to be the greatest (or even an especially auspicious) Tuesday on record -- there had been a panic attack in the morning and an emergency visit to neurology in addition to Newton’s standing therapy appointment. But the day had evened out eventually and it was nice to see Newton’s renewed enthusiasm.

His partner grinned as he hefted the boxes through the open door. Once inside, he retrieved his own key ring and went to work shredding and pulling at the packaging tape. Hermann himself sat down on their shared bed and sighed at the relief on his hip and knee after ten hours of standing at his whiteboard and computer terminal.

"I'm surprised they arrived this soon."

“Yeah, paid for expedited shipping. Hope that was okay. Right. Trying these on. Be right back!” he blurted, grabbing a handful of items from the box and disappearing into the bathroom before Hermann could reply.

Modesty, he thought, was only part of the issue there -- they had changed in front of each other and helped each other bathe more than once. Some of it might have been the novelty of having a second room to disappear to in their cluttered quarters. Or, Hermann thought wryly, it might have been needing a moment to himself. With the clothes.

Newton had discarded the suit he was wearing when he was apprehended in Tokyo and preemptively refused the clothing that was still among his belongings in Shanghai (currently frozen along with the rest of his assets, while the PPDC and Shao’s lawyers sorted out proprietary measures). After weeks of watching his partner mix and match the same borrowed shirts and too long trousers, he had given Newton the password to his online account so that he could order some things of his own.

There was a long moment where Hermann watched him take in the familiar numbers in the saved payment section; felt the astonishment echoing in his chest and his lungs which suddenly lacked air.

“That’s the Hong Kong account,” Newt said, voice quiet.

“It is.”

“They— _I_ told you to close that.”

“Technically, you told me to take your name off of it,” he corrected. “Which I did do.”  
  
Years before, when the PPDC had diverted funds to the Wall of Life, when the bottom fell out of the K-science budget, he and Newton had opened a joint bank account in Hong Kong. Into it they poured their pocket change, donations from former colleagues at MIT, Cambridge, TU-Berlin, and the various closed shatterdomes. They used the account to pass along illicit cash to the Kaidonovskys’ various connections for better equipment, better samples, a backup generator for the lab. After the war, Newt had left it fallow, making it Hermann's responsibility to ultimately close it out and pocket the remainder... which he never had.  
  
“It draws a monthly debit from my own checking… I confess I haven’t paid it much attention since then, but there should be more than enough for a few odds and ends.”

Hermann felt as well as saw his partner’s widened eyes grow glassy and spill over in that moment as the meaning overwhelmed them both: even with everything else in his life still in limbo, money would not be an issue for him in the long-term. Because Hermann had made sure of it.

A slamming in the next room forced Hermann to look up, any lingering thoughts pushed to the side.

“Newt? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Small fight with the mirror.”

Hermann leaned up on his cane, making his way toward the door. He tapped twice before the door swung inward.

The mirror above the sink was in tact, thankfully.

Newton had swapped out the shirts and cardigan for a fitted t-shirt -- charcoal grey with “PASSION IS A FASHION” in turquoise block letters -- and a slightly more fitted white oxford half-buttoned. He wore his wristbands on the left side and a ring on his index finger -- a wide silver band that flashed amber in a certain light and looked both new and intensely familiar in a way Hermann couldn't pinpoint. Below that he wore a pair of slim-fit jeans, gunmetal grey. The Doc Martens were more than a decade old and still covered with what appeared to be grit and dust from the basement lab. The addition made Hermann smile.

“Ta-dah,” he said, doing a full turn, his voice full of somber irony. His cheeks were pink, nearly red when he met Hermann’s eyes, self-consciousness overwhelming him. “How does it look?”

Hermann swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “G-good. Very good. How does it feel?"

“Okay. They fit through the shoulders and through the sleeves,” he said, tugging at the hem of the shirt where a concave belly still lingered. “I’m still not used to this.”

Hermann’s chest tightened. Well, that explained the calorie bomb he had cobbled together and called a “sandwich.”

The contents of Newt’s kitchen in Shanghai was a deliberate mystery to him. He had stopped listening after Pentecost’s description of the tins of protein powder, jars of multivitamins, and an empty fridge made him throw up. The precursors had fancied themselves experts at engineering the creation of living things and modifying their useful traits… but had no idea how to care for it. The man Hermann had known for so many years had been soft in places, good-humored and confident about his soft arms and chubby belly. He had filled out a bit in recovery, though Hermann knew it was an ongoing point of frustration.

“You’re still gaining the weight back,” he replied.

“Right, I get that. I’m a biologist -- I know it takes time. It’s just still the one piece I don’t recognize. And I was kind of hoping all the baggy areas were because of your broader shoulders and childbearing hips,” he teased. “Guess not though.”

“You’ll get all of it back.” He leaned in, his free hand settling in the crook of Newton’s arm, he was rewarded a second later as the arm slid around his waist, warm and affectionate.

“I know,” he said. “I’m working on ‘sooner’ rather than ‘later’ -- that third box is mostly Pocky and Nutella.”

“Just tell me there are enough shirts and trousers in the other two,” Hermann reminded him.

“There should be,” he smiled, turning his face into Hermann’s neck. “Not that I don’t love your stuff, Herms – I mean, it’s _yours_. I just…”

“I know,” he said, his own hand stealing up to toy with the hem of Newton’s shirt. “This suits you much better.”

“The boots help," Newton smiled. "I’m really, _really_ happy you still had these.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, leaning down until his brow grazed Newton’s.

“I’m still kind of amazed you kept the stuff that you did. I mean, most people wouldn’t...”

“It was a matter of moving it into storage,” Hermann shrugged. “And, for a long time on this base, there was storage to spare.”

Boxing up Newt’s belongings had been his choice, like staying on in Hong Kong had been his choice. He was a sentimentalist at heart, something his father had castigated him for on multiple occasions and a part of himself that he had deliberately tried to freeze at one time. It had been a futile effort. Indeed, in the last minutes of the first war, he had found it to be his closest and dearest treasure.

“You didn’t... go through my third drawer. Did you?” Newt asked, a hint of a cheeky grin in his tone.

Hermann recalled the last drawer in the bureau, awash in ripples of blue bio-luminescent light. _Steel boning and broken zippers and fiddling with laces he couldn’t see to tie… a delightful secret pressure throughout the day..._

“…no,” he replied. “However, I am aware of what was in there.”

Newton’s eyes glittered, a millisecond of shock quickly followed by amusement and delight as he swiped at Hermann’s arm with a loose sleeve as he shrugged out of his outer shirt.

“Hermann Gottlieb, you _pervert_! Using the drift to look through my unmentionables!”

“In my defense, _you_ were the one who mentioned it.”

“Oh this aggressive punning is inexcusable -- not in front of Joe Strummer, he’s been through enough!” He struggled to remove first the Oxford, then the offended t-shirt, kaiju tattooed skin replacing soft cotton in his line of sight.

Hermann laughed, breathing a bit shallow.

“Feel free to replace those as well. If you want to.”

Newton stared. Hermann had surprised him. Surprised himself as well. His mouth dried up further as his partner’s posture changed, his gaze changed.

“Really...” he moved closer, hands still clutching his discarded shirts. “Was there, um, a specific _item_ that you liked? Or color? I mean, I did that _for myself_ mainly! But I don’t… it’s not a hardship looking pretty for you.”

Hermann felt his response stall in his throat, settled for moving his hand lower to squeeze Newt’s hip.

“I think you look rather good... no matter what you’re wearing.” _In any condition_.. _. however much or little._

They hadn’t done this. Since Newt’s rescue, they had dived into a holistic, enmeshed, committed relationship, with all of the various intimacies barring physical congress: Hermann had buttoned Newt into his own shirt and trousers after the last drift brought him shaking and hyperventilating to the surface. They had slept in the same bed for six weeks. They had kissed and held each other in reunion, for reassurance, in affection and comfort. When speaking aloud failed one or both of them, they poured everything into the shared neural connection; fidelity and solidarity.

_I'm here. I’m with you. I will not let you go._

After years of silence, hesitation, and passive-aggressive sniping, they had each rather  _over-corrected_ on making their intentions known. And yet, the physical aspect of their relationship had been delayed -- at least on Hermann’s part. For the sake of recovery and readjustment and because Newton was facing pressure on enough fronts. He didn’t need Hermann’s libido mucking things up in the meantime. ‘Not yet, don’t push it.’

“What are we doing?”

“Nothing you don’t want to. Or wouldn’t want to.”

Newton grinned. “I want. Believe me, I _want_ . Did you think it was all you?” 

Hermann shook his head, thoughts hazy even as familiar lips covered his.  
  
The neural connection crackled between them, plural and permeable so that Hermann couldn't tell which one of them was transmitting and which of them was receiving:  _Longer than you knew... Longer than_ _I __knew._

There was a shift in gravity as he felt Newton’s hands slide down to grip his thighs, lifting in a way that shocked him. His cane clattered to the floor as he was carried the short distance to the bed until mattress springs creaked underneath their combined weight. The fervor reminded Hermann of teenager lust, something he only managed a glimpse of in his own teenage years and something that was a solitary activity if his drift memories of Newton’s own adolescence were anything to go by. There was an alarm going off in Hermann’s head, he tasted and smelled familiar, after six weeks, touching was familiar as well, though not with this level of urgency; they had clung together in fear, in the rough slide back to earth after drifting or the salt slick sweat of a nightmare. This was different. Sweeter. Overlaid with the smell of new nail polish and the tissue paper the clothes had been wrapped in. Better. More frightening.

He pulled back from the kiss, only to feel a short-fingered hand close around his wrist.

“No wait, come back...”

“We should... _I_ should stop," he stammered, cleared his throat.

Several emotions ran through them both quickly, small bursts so sharp it almost hurt. Most overwhelming was Hermann’s guilt -- the sense that he should be helping Newton, providing his support and compassion and his love, not giving in to such base… whatever it was that was driving him here.

The thoughts fell away as green eyes met his; the soft weight of a hand on the back of his neck.

“I don’t want you to stop,” Newton said, voice soft. “I want you to keep groping me. And I would really, _really_ like to keep groping you. If you want I mean... _m_ _ore of that, please.”_

Hermann pursed his lips against a laugh that escaped anyway. He muffled it in Newt’s shoulder as he took his wrist, guiding his hand back to grope his backside through raw new denim.  
  
So Newton’s own libido wanted a say in the matter as well. That was…all right. Quite a bit more than all right. Still. He sat up, hooking two long fingers in Newton’s belt loop to keep him balanced on his lap.

“Dude, it's not like this hasn't been a long time coming,” he said, hands moving to Hermann's shoulders.

“You’re telling me.”

“I do feel like we’ve done a lot of this sideways, though,” Newton conceded, fingers playing with hair. “I mean, we had the bad break-up -- _two_ bad break-ups -- before we ever kissed. Now we’re here after everything we’ve been through and we can’t even get to second-base. You know there’s a barracks full of teenagers two floors up who would probably laugh at us.”  
  
Herman smirked. “I’m sure they think men our age don’t do second base at all.”

“If it’s about getting tested--”

“I _got_ tested.”

“Well, good!” Newton laughed. “So did I. I take it we’re both negative? For everything?”

Hermann nodded.

“And mutual consent and enthusiasm don’t seem to be an issue. Is there anything else?”

“...apart from I haven’t done this in more than ten years?” Hermann could no longer even recall if the last time had been in Lima or Anchorage. It had been prior to the Hong Kong transfer, when Marshal Chen had introduced him to an equally bemused Newton, unaware of their previous association.

“'You think I have?” Newton asked. “Before you pulled me out, I’m pretty sure the last time I remember masturbating was the _last time_.”

Hermann laughed, startled and fond. “That memorable, was it?”

“Certain people were _not fans_. Very distressed. It turns out unmitigated evil doesn’t like even self-induced orgasms -- AO3 lied to me.”

The laughter started in Hermann’s chest and spread outward, leaving him shaking on the bed, face aching as Newton hovered over him, lips on his brow. By the time both of their giggling had died down, he was nosing along Herman’s jaw.

“Somebody knows what AO3 is…” his voice vibrated in a delighted sing-song against the side of Hermann’s throat.

“I’ve seen your browser history, Newton. From multiple perspectives. Of course I know.”

“Did you have a favorite category?” he asked, fingers playing with the top button on Herman’s trousers. “Mermaids and wraiths? Space cadets and amorous aliens?”

“I didn’t linger long enough to form an opinion.”

“Well, I’m happy to send you a list of recommendations, if you want. Or I could just show you right here…”

“I don’t want you to be anyone else in this scenario,” he said, even as his hands plucked at the fastenings on Newt’s new jeans.

“So no role playing, then,” he lifted his hips, thrusting into Hermann’s hand as he pushed the grey tweed down his hips. He closed his eyes as fabric slid down and over his erection.

“Not now. Not for a first time, darling.”

“But you’re not opposed,” Newton teased, voice cutting off as Hermann seized his hips, bringing their groins together, breathing staggered. “To this or the third drawer… _fuck_.”  
  
The denim was rough against Hermann’s wrists and the backs of his hands as he used his limited leverage to shove the trousers down further, log-jammed on Newton’s mid-thigh.

_Not opposed. No._

_So fucking pretty. And I am so fucking lucky. Oh god, keep doing that please..._  
  
\--  
  
They curled together afterward, the remains of both of their clothes crumpled at the foot of the bed.   
  
"Was this part of the order?" Hermann asked, examining the ring on the hand that was tucked under his chin. 

"No," Newton said, pausing to swallow. "My dad sent this last week -- it's oak and piano string. I've had the box in the bathroom cabinet for the last few days. Decided to finally put it on."

"It's lovely. Did he have it for a long time?"

"He _still_ has it. Technically," Newton said. "We started this thing when I went away to MIT. I hadn't been away from home before and I was worried that he wouldn't come to see me when he said he would. Monica had burned me a couple of times and...I don't know. Maybe I was testing him. He sent that to me in the post. So that I could give it back to him when he came to see me during parents' weekend. We did that for years -- holidays and birthdays, Rosh Hashanah, whatever it was. We fell out of doing it during the war and... after."

Hermann craned his head back to meet his partner's eyes. "I take it this means we're in for a visit?"

Newton smiled. “Next month, if everything goes well. I wanted to talk to you about that first."

Hermann nodded, turning over until they were face to face. "We'll see about a crash mat."

“Two crash mats — Uncle Ilia’s coming, too.”

“We’ll see about _two crash mats_ ,” he held Newton’s wrist in a loose grip, moving it up from her it had slid down to grab his arse. “And, while I know it’s early days, none of that while we have guests, Newton."  
  
"No sexy spaceman role play while my dad's in town, got it."  

“And no new ‘deliveries' during that time frame.”

“No sexy spaceman and no bad dragons," Newton nodded, turning over so that Hermann could mold himself against his shoulders and back. "Can I at least load your e-reader with enough smut to keep you distracted while they’re here?”

Hermann smirked, sliding his arm around his partner's middle, relieved when he felt a familiar hand cover his arm. 

"By all means."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Small tie-in to _[Book of Images](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15494643/chapters/36505254)_ , though the story operates well as a stand-alone.
> 
> Jacob Geiszler is a piano tuner and his ring can be found [here](https://www.etsy.com/listing/643838005/piano-string-and-exotic-wood-ring-womens?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=piano%20string%20ring&ref=sr_gallery-1-9&organic_search_click=1).


End file.
